


we walked into the heart of darkness (it was very quiet there)

by janie_tangerine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: ADWD spoilers, ASOS Spoilers, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Bittersweet Ending, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Implied or Off-stage Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, also general unpleasantness for the first third, it kind of gets better though, possibly triggering material everywhere though thread carefully, uhm ramsay is kind of his own warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-16
Updated: 2013-07-16
Packaged: 2017-12-20 09:57:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/885899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Robb hadn’t imagined that he’d get to the Dreadfort to find Theon </i>gone<i>, apparently rescued by some of his sister’s men who had been staying at Deepwood Motte, and Ramsay Snow swearing left and right that he hadn’t known that his father was planning on turning his cloak and telling Robb that he’d be more than glad to prove him that </i>he<i> surely was not thinking about serving anyone else.</i></p><p>Or: where Robb doesn't die at the Twins and has to rely on Ramsay Snow to find Theon again and close the betrayal matter once and for all, thinking that it's going to be pretty straightforward. He thinks wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we walked into the heart of darkness (it was very quiet there)

**Author's Note:**

> written for [dehautdesert](http://dehautdesert.livejournal.com/) at the last round of [got_exchange](http://got-exchange.livejournal.com/), for the prompt: _No Red Wedding. Robb returns North only to find Theon has been rescued from Ramsay by Asha and her crew. Though at first he vows to track him down and finish what Ramsay started, prolonged time in Ramsay's company and various other clues begin to make him feel like he's making a mistake. When he finally does find Theon he's absolutely horrified._ ~~which is why during the last half of this I might have gone as heavy as possible on the h/c, with *as possible* being the key word~~. The title is a reworked quote from Conrad's _Heart of Darkness_ and absolutely nothing belongs to me except the plot.

“They stormed the fort, you said.”

“I’m afraid they did, Your Grace. Most men were –”

“I _know_ where most of your father’s men were.”

Ramsay Snow doesn’t say anything more and Robb feels like punching the nearest wall in frustration. Of course he knows where most of the Bolton men had been – going to the Twins to turn their cloak on him as Roose Bolton had planned, and it was just his luck that an over-zealous guard intercepted one of the letters Jeyne’s mother had been about to send to Tywin Lannister. (At that point Robb had figured that there was just no point in keeping on fighting a war that looked lost already and instead of going to a wedding at the Twins he sent Stannis a raven promising to bend his knee the moment the war was over if they could ally. Turns out, it had been a very good decision.)

Now he needs to secure back the North, and he had figured he’d go for the Dreadfort first – if only because it’s high time he takes care of his business with Theon.

Robb hadn’t imagined that he’d get to the Dreadfort to find Theon _gone_ , apparently rescued by some of his sister’s men who had been staying at Deepwood Motte, and Ramsay Snow swearing left and right that he hadn’t known that his father was planning on turning his cloak and telling Robb that he’d be more than glad to prove him that _he_ surely was not thinking about serving anyone else.

“From what I hear, they aren’t much good without his sister, though. Your Grace.”

“Explain yourself.”

“They managed to do it only because it was more of them, but from what I heard while I was hiding, it’s not _too_ many stationed over there. With your army, it would be a jape to get back the fort. Along with your prisoner, of course.”

There’s something strange in the way he says _your prisoner_ , Robb thinks – as if he’s a bit disappointed that Theon was supposed to be _Robb_ ’s prisoner – but maybe he’s just hearing things and he’s being distrustful just because he’s talking to Roose Bolton’s son. He’s also trying not to think about that piece of skin Roose Bolton had gifted him when he joined his army in Riverrun – then again, he’s known for years that Boltons flay their enemies. He tries not to let his uneasiness show, though, and figures that he might as well see for himself if it’s the case to give Snow a chance – after all, it’d be unfair not to just because his last name isn’t Bolton. And he might be sincere when he says that he hadn’t known about his father’s plans – also he needs someone who actually knows the roads around the Dreadfort better than him.

Not to mention that he had to take back Deepwood Motte regardless, before finally sending for Jeyne and his sister in King’s Landing and go back home for good.

“Let’s say that I leave tomorrow. You do know that I can’t exactly leave you here or agree to let you inherit until I’m sure that you ignored everything about your father’s plans.”

“Of course, Your Grace. I’d be happy to serve you as well as I can,” Snow answers, his lips curling up in a too-knowing grin. “I will come with you and help you get him back. If I prove myself, would you set me free?”

“I don’t see why I shouldn’t,” Robb agrees, even if there’s a part of him saying, _be cautious_.

Grey Wind growls softly from behind him, almost in disapproval.

There’s something that feels very wrong about this, but Robb can’t waste time thinking about it. He has to go find Theon and put an end to this mess, and he still wants to look at him in the eyes and ask him why before he takes his head, and if he’ll need Snow to do it, he’ll have to deal with it.

\--

“I suppose your father never sent word about a certain thing I asked him, did he?”

Snow swallows a piece of the sausage he’s eating for dinner and shakes his head. “I’m afraid not, Your Grace. What would that have been about?”

Robb decides that he doesn’t really want to know the fine details of that certain thing, and maybe, since he, well, _needs_ Snow, he shouldn’t bring that specific matter up.

The matter being, that he didn’t want Theon tortured.

“Nothing of import,” Robb answers, then eats a piece of his own meat. “But I was wondering, did he at least tell you why he stormed Winterfell?”

“Oh. You mean Greyjoy, then.” Snow brings his last mouthful of meat to his lips before answering, he already had it mid-way, and Robb can’t help noticing that he takes his good time swallowing it. “I’m afraid that it was nothing you would be too interested in. He had a little sob story about wanting to make his lord father proud, but that was everything he had to say on the subject.”

Robb shakes his head and wants to punch the nearest surface all over again – _making his father proud_? Doesn’t sound much like Theon. Or better, Theon always used to say that there really wouldn’t be the need to do such a thing. For a moment Robb wonders what exactly happened during the trip to Pyke – he could have sworn on a lot of things that Theon had been sincere when proposing that alliance. You don’t know someone for ten years just to find out you’ve been completely and utterly wrong about them.

 _He killed your brothers, though_ , a voice in his head reminds him, and Robb forces himself to finish his dinner even if he’s lost his appetite. Snow seems to have a lot, though. Good for him.

\--

The last thing he expects when he goes back to his room – they have to leave early tomorrow morning and he said he’d retire early – is to see Grey Wind next to the bed, perfectly alert and growling softly.

“Not now,” Robb sighs as he attempts to sit down, but the wolf snarls and grabs a piece of his cloak between his teeth and tugs.

Robb tries to say no another time, but after Grey Wind tugs so hard that he almost falls down to the ground, he figures that he’ll sleep later.

“All right, all right. I’m coming. This better be worth it,” he mutters as he follows the wolf outside his room. Grey Wind trots along the hallway and down the stairs, then to another hallway, until he stops in front of a closed door.

Then he nods towards it.

“Gods, I can’t exactly –”

Robb stops dead in his tracks when his wolf sends him a disappointed look that is worth of his mother’s when she told Bran not to climb walls so high. And – well. Technically he’s still everyone’s liege lord in here – if he wants to explore the damn castle and open doors at random then _I felt like it_ should be a sufficient excuse.

He sighs and pushes the door open.

There’s still enough sunlight that he can see what’s in it – mostly, a table and a cross pinned to the wall, the kind you use to torture someone, and until then nothing he wasn’t expecting from a place named the Dreadfort.

The thing is that – there’s a weird smell. It feels like this room has actually been used for its intended means and recently, and that the air hasn’t been changed in a while. It’s not very strong, as if it’s been at least a couple of weeks since then, but Robb is sure he can smell blood at least. 

Then Grey Wind leaves his side, goes towards a corner and comes back bringing Robb what looks like a piece of cloth.

Robb decides that the more he stays here the more he risks being found out and he leaves quickly – Grey Wind doesn’t try to stop him, so whatever business he thought Robb had in this room is done. Robb goes back to his own and then he takes a good look at the piece of cloth – it’s a cloak, actually. Or half of one. It’s also so dirty that Robb feels his fingers getting stained as he touches it, and he doesn’t see why it’d be important until –

There’s a Greyjoy sigil embroidered in the corner.

So that must have been where – _where_ –

Robb goes straight for the fireplace and burns the cloak, and if his fingers shake as he does it, he tries to convince himself that it’s not anything important.

Grey Wind has left the room when he turns back towards the bed.

He glances at the door. 

It’s nothing anyone among friends would do, but after a moment of hesitation, Robb locks it.

\--

That night, he dreams.

It’s one of those queer dreams where he feels like he’s _inside_ Grey Wind, and he’d have happily done without, but if only it was just that. He dreams that he’s just outside this room and then that he starts walking through the corridor, going back outside the room with the cross.

Then – then he (or Grey Wind, or _both_ – he doesn’t know) starts following some kind of faint scent that to Robb feels familiar but that he can’t place. Grey Wind probably would, but Robb doesn’t really know what is even happening. They walk through that hallway, then downstairs, then still downstairs until they’re in the dungeons and only a few frightened guards have been in their way. Robb can’t do anything as he feels stench fill up his nostrils, but they keep on going – down, down and down until they reach a small, dark cell with an open door.

There’s no light except a faint fire from a torch that’s still pretty far from the cell itself, but between that and Grey Wind’s better eyes, Robb can see enough. It’s small, almost cramped even, and there’s dried blood all over the stone floor. Robb hears a rat walking by somewhere near, and other than blood the floor is covered in filth – Robb wishes it was just dust. The thing is the _stench_. It’s so strong that even if the cell hasn’t obviously been inhabited for a while it’s plain that other than blood there’s excrement too, and at that point Robb’s eyes open and he wakes up at once – and he can’t keep it in.

He runs straight to the fireplace and vomits at once, his stomach turning itself upside down, and as he leans back and takes deep breaths after he’s done, he decides that it’s just his mind playing tricks with him.

But then – he goes to the door, opens it and sees that Grey Wind is not there. He usually never leaves the front of the door, lately, while he’s sleeping.

Which means –

Which means that if it wasn’t a dream and if the scent felt familiar, then it must have been Theon’s.

Robb doesn’t go back to sleep that night.

\--

“Weren’t the chambers to your liking, Your Grace?”

Robb has to blink twice before realizing that the question had been directed at him. He turns towards Ramsay Snow and shakes his head.

“The chambers were fine. I’m just tired. Come to the front, you’ll need to tell us the faster road.”

“Of course. Let me fetch my dogs, they might be useful.”

Snow leaves for the moment, and Robb figures that he’ll go back to the kitchen and have some fresh water – he feels ridiculously thirsty, and as if he might fall asleep every moment.

He doesn’t expect the only maid in the kitchen to scream out loud the moment he walks in.

“I’m sorry, m’lord,” she says when she realizes that he’s not the person she had been fearing, looking at the ground as if she’s terrified.

“It’s fine,” Robb tells her, feeling a bit thrown out of the loop. “Really, I just wanted to get some water.”

“I’ll do that,” she interrupts quickly before grabbing a pitcher in the corner of a table and getting him the nicest clean cup that could be found. Robb thanks her as he takes it from her trembling fingers.

“M’lord?” she asks, a moment later. “I mean, Your Grace.”

“That’s no matter. Yes?”

“Would you – if I can presume – you won’t tell Lord Ramsay, will you?”

“About what? Nothing happened.”

“Thank you,” she says in a rush of breath. “I just – he always says that I’d have been the next if he ever tried to escape again and – but I said enough. I’m – I’m sorry again, Your Grace.”

Then she runs away from the room, living Robb with the empty cup in his hands and feeling even more confused than before.

 _If he tried to escape again she’d have been the next?_ Robb can’t even ask for an explanation, he fears, or he’d give her out, but there’s something obviously fucking _wrong_ in this place and damn him if he can realize exactly what it is.

He puts the cup back on the table and goes back outside – they have to ride.

\--

Ramsay Snow’s dogs turn out to be two females – Grey Wind doesn’t growl at them when they join him in the front. Well then, Robb thinks, time to leave and be done.

He doesn’t know what possesses him to actually ask the question a while later – maybe it’s that he feels like he’ll burst if he doesn’t just talk to someone, or maybe it’s that he’s tired and he needs to distract himself.

“They look like fine hunting dogs,” Robb says as he looks down at the two of them.

“I take care to train them well, Your Grace,” Snow replies, sounding all too pleased with it.

“Do they have a name?”

“The one on the left is Grey Jeyne. The other is Kyra.” Snow smirks wider as he says the last name and Robb shrugs, figuring that if naming his hunting dogs with real names is what Snow likes, then he doesn’t see the issue.

It’s not until they’re stopping for lunch that he remembers something.

_What was the name of that tavern wench Theon used to bed? Wasn’t that – Kyra?_

He shakes his head, figuring that he must be seeing things. It’s not a very common name, sure, but what relation could there be between the two? It’s a coincidence. Surely a coincidence. And fine, Snow’s smile looked _weird_ as he said that specific name, but maybe it’s just Robb seeing things.

Yes, he’s probably just tired and after last night, who wouldn’t be.

\--

Nothing of the kind happens throughout the day, and Robb is _very_ thankful for that, and then they stop in a small village for the night.

Then it happens that the closest to an inn they have is a brothel, and that was not what Robb had in mind when he was picturing sleeping for the night, since said brothel has about fifteen rooms and about five girls working there, he finds himself in front of the whole lot of them along with Snow, Smalljon Umber and a couple other supposedly trusted men of Snow’s – he hadn’t really wanted to go along with it but apparently it was expected of him even if he’s married.

He’s about to say that he’ll pass and that really he’d rather sleep outside with the rest of the army, when he notices one of the girls looking at Snow as if she’s legitimately scared at the prospect of sharing a bed with him. Snow, on his side, is definitely looking her way.

Well, being in charge has to count for something, right?

“If no one has anything to object, I’d like to spend the night with you,” he says, looking straight at said girl. For a moment he’s sure that Snow’s eyes turn cold, but a moment later he’s all smiles again.

“Who would have anything to object?” he says, amiably.

“It would – it would be a honor. M’lord.” The girl looks at him as if she’s mighty grateful and then holds out a hand. Robb takes it and lets her lead him upstairs and to a fairly good room – he can feel her fingers shaking throughout.

When she closes the door and starts taking off her clothes, he puts a hand on her wrists and stops her.

“I wasn’t planning on bedding you,” he sighs.

“You – you were not? Your Grace?”

“You didn’t seem to be looking forward to do it with someone else and I need a bed to sleep on. Don’t worry, I’ll still pay you.”

She shakes her head. “I – thank you,” she whispers as she grabs a shawl from a chair and drapes it around her shoulders.

“What’s your name?” Robb asks as he takes off his boots. He might as well get comfortable, right?

“Violet,” she says as she sits down on the bed, bringing her knees closer to her frame.

“All right. Listen, I’m dead tired so I’ll probably just go to sleep in a short while, and the owner knows I’ll pay in the morning, so – just do whatever you wish. Really. And – can I ask you something?”

“Of course. Your Grace.”

“Why didn’t you want to – with him, I mean?”

She takes a deep breath. “I have. A number of times.”

Then she raises her skirt. Robb is about to tell her to stop, he really doesn’t want to –

Except that when he looks at her inner thigh he sees that there’s a deep scar on the surface. A knife scar.

“… he did that?”

She nods. “It’s not like one can’t do that if they tell us first – usually it’s all for show. But – with him it wasn’t. He said he’d have liked to – take me hunting, after that time. I don’t know what he meant, but – you’ll see why I didn’t want to – you won’t tell him, will you?”

Her eyes go wide in fear at that, and he shakes her head. “He’s with me just because I need him, but I wish I didn’t. I won’t.”

“Thank you. Your Grace.”

She curls on her side and falls asleep long before Robb does. He can’t stop thinking about the kitchen maid and at her expression – the same he’s just seen on Violet right now.

 _What did he actually do with Theon?,_ he asks himself, and then decides that he has to stop thinking about it. It doesn’t matter. And whatever it was, Theon went searching for it, didn’t he?

\--

He sleeps half-decently and pays the owner for both rooms and girls.

He can’t help noticing that it’s just four of them greeting his small party as they leave.

He doesn’t want to know if the missing one is the one who bedded Ramsay Snow.

\--

In the next two days they do cover a decent amount of distance, but it’s at least a week until Deepwood Motte – and if Snow hadn’t suggested them the way, it’d have taken them longer. Robb regrets needing him there, because regardless of the Theon situation he’s feeling like he promised freedom to someone who shouldn’t be left to their own devices, but what can he do about it?

Anyway, at least he’s going to get there quick and he’ll close this matter once and for all – it’s not like he can allow Asha Greyjoy to bring her brother back to their stupid islands the moment they’re done with their ridiculous succession matters, not when he killed Robb’s brothers and – he can’t even think about Winterfell being burned down.

And then it happens that they make camp for the night and at some point Robb has to leave his small council to go relieve himself – he finds a tree not too far and then walks next to a couple of men that came from the Dreadfort, who look well into their cups.

“ – his face when I put fire to his horse, d’you remember it?” It’s loud enough that Robb hears it even if he’s not exactly near them. The other man starts laughing out loud before taking another drink.

“Oh, _that_ was just – he looked everything but a bloody prince,” the second man agrees.

“Fucking turncloak,” the first says before belching out loud.

 _Fucking turncloak? Bloody prince?_ Robb can deny it to himself how much he wants, but there’s not much doubt about the subject of this conversation. 

It makes no fucking sense – if Theon burned Winterfell down then why would they have burned his horse alive?

He wishes he could ignore that, but – everything else that he had felt was _wrong_ was related to things he could as well have imagined. This? He’s not so sure.

\--

“Can I ask you a question?” Robb asks Ramsay Snow the morning after.

“But of course, Your Grace.”

“I was wondering – I never heard the details about – well, the sack of Winterfell. Maybe you could tell me more about it?”

Snow blinks once before giving Robb another amiable smile that somehow feels _wrong_ all over again.

“Absolutely, but there’s not much to tell. By the time we reached it, they had already burned it down before they left since they figured it was impossible to defend it. We helped Rodrik Cassel’s men get the turncloak and the other ironborn with him, but he perished – there were few, but they were good. Not a match for all of us eventually, though.”

“So you never actually set foot into the castle?”

“I’m sad to say, there was not much to set foot into.”

“Very well. Thank you regardless,” Robb replies, trying not to let it show that the only thought running through his head right now is _he’s lying about something_.

A horse would have been in the stables, Robb reasons. And if Theon had actually been riding it, they would have had to knock him out somewhat in order to take him prisoner, so how could he have seen the horse die?

No, something doesn’t add up.

Then he notices Snow glancing at a small pouch tied to his belt.

“What’s that?”

“Oh,” Snow replies, sounding very matter-of-fact about it, “just a few bones. They belonged to one of my favorite pets – had great potential, that one.”

“Was that – one of your hunting dogs?”

“Not exactly, but close enough.” He looks halfway between nostalgic and resigned right now, and – _close enough_? 

Robb doesn’t dare asking explanations about that, but this conversation hasn’t done anything to make him feel any better about the circumstances.

Not one single bit.

\--

When, three days later, Grey Wind wakes him up by biting softly on his fingers during the night, Robb doesn’t make any noise and follows him without questioning. He gets out of his tent and walks out into a camp full of sleeping men, until they reach a tent in the part with Bolton colors. There’s a candle lit inside – Robb thinks it’s not Snow’s though. It definitely belonged to one of his men, though. Who’s discussing matters with another, apparently.

“ – you think he knew?”

“Does it matter whether he knew or not? Just be glad that we’re not getting hanged for traitors even if we didn’t know anything about Lord Roose’s plans.”

“Still, doesn’t it seem weird that he didn’t? After Winterfell?”

“Shut your mouth about Winterfell and go back to sleep, the last thing we need is some Stark soldiers fucking _hearing_ you.”

The candle’s light dies a moment later.

 _Shut your mouth about Winterfell_? Why should he if it went the way Snow said?

 _Because it obviously didn’t go like that_. He can’t dance around that much longer – Snow is lying to him about this. There’s no way to sugarcoat it.

It’s another three days before they get to Deepwood Motte. Robb takes a deep breath and leaves, going back to his tent, Grey Wind trailing behind him.

The problem is, if it did _not_ go like that, which is pretty much a given by now, how did it? And what did Theon actually _do_? Not that it changes much, but – Robb doesn’t like any of this. The Bolton man saying _his face when I burned his horse_ , the kitchen maid being worried sick about being sent _somewhere if he tried to escape again_ , the piece of skin Roose Bolton sent him as a fucking gift – he feels like there’s something connecting all the pieces but that he’s not getting it, and maybe he doesn’t want to.

Because he has a feeling that if he does, he’ll find out that he had most of this at least partly wrong.

He was going to find Theon, ask him why he’d kill his brothers and destroy his home and then have his head.

As it is, he knows he’ll have to ask him how exactly did he destroy his home, at least.

\--

The next night, he dreams the wolf dreams again.

He’s inside Grey Wind, as usual, quickly trotting through the camp, until he reaches the tree where Snow’s dogs are leashed to. Snow is feeding them scraps of meat as he speaks to them – and until there, well, fine. People do talk to their dogs, Robb figures.

This, until he hears what he’s actually saying.

“Such a pity that this is the second one I lose,” Snow sighs as he feeds Kyra a piece of meat. “It was going so well – a few months and he’d have been perfect, but what can I do. Who’d have thought I’d have to give up my Reek twice.”

 _His Reek_? Robb thinks in the dream, not getting it at all.

“Ah, well, not worth risking my own head, right?”

He laughs after, though it’s more a snort than else, and Robb – it sounds so revolting that he can’t keep on dreaming anymore, and he opens his eyes inside the tent, taking deep breaths, feeling as if he’s just stopped running after hours of doing so, and he doesn’t vomit just because there’s no way he could hide it in the morning and he has to keep a straight face in front of everyone still.

A life ago, he’d have asked Maester Luwin to clarify this whole Reek deal for him – if anyone in the North would have known everything there was to know about who served for whom, that’d have been him. But there’s no Luwin to turn to, and regardless of Theon’s situation, Robb can’t help thinking that when he promised Snow his freedom in the beginning he took the most stupid decision of his entire life.

Not to mention that…

The only raven he ever received from Luwin himself had been the one about Theon taking Winterfell. The one about Bran and Rickon being dead had been obviously written by someone else and Theon had signed it, sure, but it doesn’t change the heart of the matter. And about the sack of Winterfell… it’s established that he has no clue of how it really went.

Might it be that Theon might not have done that, at least? Not that it changes much about his brothers, but _still_ – still.

When he received the news, he couldn’t believe that because he couldn’t think that Theon was capable of doing anything like that. Then he had to deal with being wrong, but –

_What if I wasn’t?_

When Grey Wind walks into his tent, softly, Robb doesn’t waste time feeling embarrassed and hides his face in his fur when the wolf curls around him, and thinks, _he’s been trying to tell me something, too_.

Which – which seems to head in the same direction.

Robb isn’t so sure about any of this anymore.

\--

“Do I have to remind you of your promise, Your Grace?” Snow asks when they’re a day from Deepwood Motte.

“You don’t,” Robb sighs. “I don’t go back on my word. You bring me to him, or where he is, you’re free to go back to the Dreadfort with your men.”

“If that’s so, then, I’m going to show you a shortcut,” Snow says, grinning so widely that Robb has to take his eyes away from it.

There’s something so _wrong_ about this, it almost makes him sick.

\--

Snow was right about one thing, at least.

Deepwood Motte doesn’t last much at the first assault – there’s only a few men without a commander, and the fortress falls so easily it’s almost laughable.

Then Robb asks the man in charge to give them Theon Greyjoy, and that’s when he starts to see how wrong exactly he had been. After all, Theon is supposed to be the son of this man’s king, so Robb expects the man to tell him to fuck off.

The man starts laughing instead, and tells Robb that if he really wants him, he can go get him where he _insisted_ was his place and as far as they care, Robb can take his head on the spot.

\--

When Robb realizes that _what he insisted was his place_ is where they kept the few dogs surviving in the fortress – then suddenly everything _makes fucking sense_ and he thinks that if he could punch himself in the face for having been so stupid, he would.

\--

“You lied to me,” Robb says, gritting his teeth, as Snow still smiles amiably, getting ready to go.

“Well, _Your Grace_ , every man has to do something to ensure his living, doesn’t he?”

“Fine. I’m not going back on your word. You’re leaving and that’s it. But at least give me the truth now, since I doubt I’ll get it from him of all people.”

“I see your point, Your Grace. Yes, he’s a bit out of it, isn’t he?” He’s still smiling, as if he’s so satisfied with himself, and the thing is that he has every bloody right to be since he played Robb exactly the way he wanted to.

“Don’t make me go back on my word now and just answer me,” Robb hisses, and Grey Wind growls low, and that’s what makes the smile fall from Snow’s face.

At least that.

“Very well. For one, he never killed your brothers.”

Robb’s blood goes cold.

“He – _he didn’t_?”

“I was there – I had managed to get in _his service_ , little did he knew. Your brothers escaped at some point and no one ever found them, so I suggested him to kill two commoners in their stead. It wouldn’t have done to make it seem as if they escaped under his nose, right? He started sleeping a lot worse after that, but you can’t have everything, can you? Oh, and as you probably were suspecting, _he_ never burned Winterfell.”

He’s grinning again by now. “It was you, wasn’t it?”

“I had my orders,” Snow says, still sounding so _calm_ – it’s making Robb feel so angry, he can barely see straight. “Nothing personal, of course. About what happened after… I think I shall leave you the pleasure to find out on your own. Don’t worry – he’s learned his lesson. He’s not going to betray you again. Oh, of course, as far as he knew, you were entirely fine with… that treatment.”

“I understand,” Robb hisses.

“Well then. I think it’s all, _your Grace_.”

“Just one more thing.”

Robb doesn’t know if it’s a smart idea or no, but it’s not as if he can do much more right now, and – and he’s not going to let him get away with that fucking smile plastered on his face.

Robb’s fingers close into a fist and he punches across Snow’s face hard enough that blood covers his knuckles at once. Snow is so surprised by it that he doesn’t even realize it’s coming, and he’s looking at Robb with burning hatred in his eyes as he spits a couple of teeth on the ground.

“I don’t think he’s going to appreciate it,” Robb says, thinking about what he’s seen of Theon’s mouth, “not for a while, at least, but _that_ made me feel a fucking lot better. Now get out of my sight before I go back on my stupid word.”

Snow spits blood at his feet and leaves.

Good riddance, Robb decides. He’ll find some other way to get back at him later – now he has to decide what in the seven hells he has to do other than throwing every single ironborn in the dungeons.

\--

He tells his men that they’re going to stay here and regroup for a few weeks before he goes back to Winterfell and everyone is free to go back to their own homes – he needs some time to sort things out, starting with sending out search parties for his brothers and sending someone to King’s Landing to get Sansa.

Then he takes in a deep breath and goes to talk to the guards who had dealt with Theon before – they’re standing guard outside Robb’s room, where he had said to bring him.

“How – how is the situation?”

“He didn’t fight it when we brought him up,” one of them answers. “I guess – because –”

 _Because Snow told him he belonged to me now, yes, I was there, I saw it_. “I know. Then?”

“Then – someone tried to bring food and he refused, then they suggested a bath and he was about to claw at his own skin instead of accepting, and at that point we gave up.”

“That’s fine. Just – you can leave. And – while you’re at it, get someone to bring a bath up in the next room.”

The guard looks skeptical about anything working in that sense, but they both leave a moment later and Robb takes in a deep breath before walking inside the room.

Theon is (as Robb had suspected) curled into a corner, and Robb wants to throw up again when he sees the missing toes on his feet, but he swallows and forces himself to keep it down. When he closes the door, Theon’s head jerks upwards and he looks at him for a moment before staring down again.

What makes Robb see red is that there’s no recognition whatsoever in it.

He takes another deep breath, trying not to mind the stench, and moves closer. When he’s close enough to touch Theon’s shoulders flinch visibly and Robb takes a step back. Before he has time to think it through, though, Theon moves forward so that he’s on his knees and he obviously forces himself to let his hands fall to his sides.

“I’m sorry. M’lord.” It’s barely audible, but Robb hears it even too well.

“What – what for?”

“I’m – I shouldn’t have done that.”

Oh gods. The only thing he’s done until now was flinching.

“It’s all right,” Robb says, trying to keep his voice even. “Will you look at me?”

Theon swallows and does, and Robb has to put an effort in keeping his face straight – he has no clue of what Snow could have meant when he had said _a few months and he’d have been perfect_. The only recognizable feature other than the eyes is the hair – it’s not as dark as it used to be, but at least it’s not quite gray yet even if there’s some of it, but for the rest… he’s thin enough that Robb can see how sharp his cheekbones look, and he just has three fingers on one hand and four on the other now. Robb doesn’t even want to know what _perfect_ would have meant. But the thing that hurts most is that the way Theon’s looking at him, there’s no recognition whatsoever. He looks as if he’s resigned to whatever Robb might have in store for him, but not as if he even knows who he is.

Robb swallows and tries to find something to say – and considering the reaction he got before when he called him _Theon_ , it’s the last thing he should do right now. The last thing he needs to hear right now is a list of words that rhyme with Reek.

“I don’t know what you’re expecting me to do now,” Robb starts, figuring he has to at some point. “But it probably won’t be that.”

“You – you should – he would –”

“He would have done what?”

“Made me work for it,” he whispers. When Robb sees his eyes looking at his waist, where his breeches are laced up, he suddenly _gets_ it and –

No. He’s not going to vomit.

“Nothing like that,” he says, hoping that the subject dies here and now. Then he moves closer and puts his fingers around Theon’s bony wrists, trying not to put too much strength into it and trying not to mind too much that Theon is shaking like a leaf.

“All right, listen to me. You have nothing to be sorry for. And the only thing you could do for me right now is taking a bath and eat.”

Theon closes his eyes at once, his head shaking feebly. “I can’t – if _he_ finds out –”

“Even if he finds out, he couldn’t do anything about it,” Robb says, wishing he never made that promise. Then he takes in a deep breath and hopes that he won’t feel too dirty after he says this – gods, he feels horrible just even thinking about that, but he needs Theon to do both things before he even tries to see if there’s anything left of _Theon_ in there at all. “Before, when we were outside. You said you’d do anything I’d ask for, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Theon replies, his voice barely audible all over again.

“Then I’m asking for it.”

“It’s – it’s not – won’t you punish me for it later?”

Oh gods, now Robb really wants to vomit.

“No, of course not,” he says, and then something obviously gives and Theon gives him a soft nod before scrunching his eyes closed.

All right. Better than nothing, but Robb still feels horrible for having played dirty in order to get him there.

Never mind. If he ever manages to talk to _Theon_ again, he’ll apologize profusely then.

At that, he realizes that he’s just vowed to _apologize to Theon_ and he figures that he’ll have to scrap all his plans – he’s not going to kill him, even if a part of him is telling him to just put the man out of his misery and do it. But Robb wants to know the truth behind this entire thing, and he’s not going to take the easy way out of it. Never mind that whatever happened, he owes it to the ten years they knew each other – he’s not going to take off Theon’s head when he can’t even remember his own name or Robb’s.

\--

On one side, he’d have thought he’d stay out of the room, but then he realized that there was no way Theon would get into the tub without some help, so he stays and gets some of his own clothes brought in before anyone gets naked.

For one, after he locks the door, Theon shakes all over as he gets rid of his rags. It’s not just that he’s seriously too thin, though – it’s that Robb can’t see a patch of skin that hasn’t been flayed at some point.

 _And I was upset for a finger_ , he thinks horrified as he wordlessly helps Theon into the tub and tries not to think about the fact that his thighs and groin look like a huge mess of scar tissue.

The first thing he’s telling him if he ever comes back is that he never ordered any of that, gods.

After that, he resolutely turns his back to the scene – he’s not going to pry more than he has to, but then –

“You don’t have to do that. M’lord.”

“Do what?”

“Turn your back,” Theon replies quietly.

“Do you want me to look?” Robb asks.

“It doesn’t matter what I want,” Theon says a moment later.

Robb thinks that if he’ll manage not to throw up before this day is over, he’ll feel as if he just won a war square and straight.

“Actually it does,” Robb says, figuring that it’ll fall on deaf ears. “Call if you need help, but I’m not going to look if I don’t have to.”

Theon doesn’t call until he actually has to get out of the tub – the water is so dark it’s almost black when he steps out of it. Robb is quick to hand him a towel and the clothes after, and the only thing he has to do is lacing up the shirt – small mercies, though the last thing he needed to see is that the skin on Theon’s chest is at least four different shades of pink. He does look a tad better overall now, though – at least there’s not grime everywhere and his hair looks somewhat healthy – small mercies. He’s also looking at Robb as if he’s completely lost now that he actually has clothes and he doesn’t smell like his former cell in the Dreadfort.

“All right. There should be something to eat ready in the next room.”

Theon looks down at the ground and follows him without a word.

\--

At least he eats all of the soup that had been brought – he looked like someone famished, not that Robb figures that it’s far from the truth at all. Robb ends up giving him his dinner, too, even if Theon tries to protest, but to be entirely frank he can’t even bring himself to eat right now and Theon obviously can.

By now, it’s dark outside and while Robb isn’t sure he wants to have the conversation that he has to have right now, he’ll have to soldier on and do it.

“All right,” he starts. “You’re not sleeping on the outside.”

“But – that’s where I should –”

“No, it’s not. Not according to me, anyway. You’re staying here. If you want the bed –”

“No. No, I don’t – I can’t – I’m not sure I can sleep on one, anyway. Please, don’t –”

“Fine. Fine then, wherever you want as long as it’s not outside. And – right, listen, nothing happens if the answer to the other thing I have to ask you is no, all right?”

Theon gives him a feeble nod, obviously not believing him. He looks as if he’s bracing himself for the worst.

“You – you really don’t remember me, do you?”

Theon looks at him, swallows visibly, and then looks down at his hands instead. “I feel like I should, but I don’t. I’m –”

“Don’t,” Robb interrupts him. “It’s fine. I said nothing was going to happen if the answer was no, don’t be sorry. But – do you really want to do something for me?”

“Of course. Whatever you want. M’lord.”

“We’re leaving for somewhere safer in… two or three weeks. Try to see if you can remember that between now and then.”

“What – what happens if I don’t?”

He’s saying that in a voice so small that he almost sounds as if he’s five, not twenty. Not that he looks twenty, not now, and the contrast is about to make Robb’s head hurt.

He reaches out slowly, putting a finger under Theon’s chin, bringing it upwards so that he’s looking up at him but trying to do that as gently as he can. Theon goes still at once the moment they touch – Robb tries not to feel horrible about it.

“It happens that I tell you myself. Nothing else.”

“But –”

“Nothing else happens. I know you have no reason to believe me, but I’m not – I don’t do things that way. Just give it a try, but nothing happens if you can’t.”

Robb lets his hand drop after that, feeling bad for having even done that – regardless of what Theon seems to think, he’s not going to touch more than necessary if it’s not wanted.

“I will,” Theon finally says, his voice almost cracking.

“Fine. I’m just – if you want to go to sleep or whatever, just do it. I’ll go take a walk.”

Theon’s eyes go wide in surprise when Robb does exactly that – not that he goes far. When he’s out of the room, he drops sitting to the ground and takes his head in between his hands, and when Grey Wind moves next to him and licks the back of his wrist, he doesn’t send him away. Whoever is around can see, as far as he’s concerned.

 

He doesn’t go back inside for a while – when he does, Theon is laying down, curled against the wall, looking asleep.

Robb grabs a blanket from his own covers and puts it over him, then goes to bed and doesn’t go to sleep for a long time.

It doesn’t last much, though – he’s woken by what sounds like someone thrashing in the corner, and it’s not as if there’s much to wonder about it. For a moment he’s tempted to leave it alone, who knows how Theon might react, but then Robb hears him sobbing _no_ and _please_ and _yes cut it off_ , and then he sees that he has just punched the wall with his left hand.

He jumps down from the bed and heads for the corner where Theon is laying and turns him on his back, shaking his shoulder hard enough to wake him up – or so he thinks. When he opens his eyes, Robb shudders – he’s looking at Robb but not really, completely unfocused, and he’s shaking so hard that Robb is almost afraid to touch him further.

“Why are you doing this?” he asks, sounding as if he’s about to break down crying.

“I’m – I’m not – Theon?”

“No,” he answers, “no, I can’t, it doesn’t rhyme, it rhymes with weak, it’s not that, don’t say it.”

“It’s over,” Robb replies helplessly, not knowing what he should do anymore, but then Theon closes his eyes and opens them again a moment later, and when he looks at him – well, he doesn’t seem to be recognizing him, not properly, but at least it’s obvious that he knows where he is.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, closing his eyes as if he’s bracing himself for something that he won’t like.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Robb says. “Are you sure you don’t want the bed?”

“No. Please, no.”

“All right then,” Robb says, and – he doesn’t know what possesses him to lean down and press his lips to Theon’s temple before moving away. Theon’s eyes snap open, so wide in surprise that it’d be almost comical.

“What – why –”

“Go back to sleep if you can,” Robb says, and then goes back to the bed even if he feels guilty just looking at the way Theon is curling back on himself on the floor.

\--

The morning after, Theon does look as if he slept some, at least, so Robb doesn’t press – better not. Robb tells the maid not to bring anything that would be too hard to chew on for breakfast and he doesn’t have to insist too much to get Theon to eat one of the fresh honeycakes that are delivered a short while later.

He doesn’t take more and Robb doesn’t push.

“I need to take care of some things,” he says when it’s clear that neither of them is going to eat more. “I might be back for lunch. Meanwhile – if you want to take the bed, do it.”

“I can’t,” Theon replies instantly. “I wouldn’t, it’s not –”

“And I say that you can. Just if you want though, all right?”

Theon gives him a nod that’s anything but convincing and Robb sighs as he leaves. Grey Wind is standing guard outside the door as usual, along with the same two guards as yesterday. He nods at Grey Wind, who moves straight into the room, then Robb closes the door.

“If he asks for food or anything of the kind, have it brought over. Don’t let in anyone other than myself.”

Then he goes searching for Maege Mormont – he needs to talk to that man who seemed to be in charge, the one who had laughed when Robb asked where Theon was.

\--

“So she left for the islands and she never sent a raven? I can’t believe that.”

“Believe what you want,” the man answers with a scowl. “The only order she left was to go to the Dreadfort and get her bloody brother back, which we did. He _did_ try to put on a fight when we got him out, but whatever’s going through his head, that’s not my business.”

“…. You do realize that _her bloody brother_ would actually be your liege lord?” Robb has no clue why he’s taking Theon’s side in this, but this attitude is irking him.

The man snorts all over again. “Right, he would be? _My lord,_ don’t joke. He’s no good for that now and he wasn’t good for that when he came back the first time round, anyway.”

_What?_

“Tell me about that,” Robb says then.

“And why would I even bother, Stark?”

“Because I might decide to execute you and all your men on the morrow or I might let you live until I know what your _liege lady_ has in mind. So, what about that?”

The man considers it and then shrugs. “Not much to tell really. He came to Pyke dressed all fancy, as if he didn’t even remember that it’s not how we dress, thinking that he’d get everything handed on a bloody silver platter. Lord Balon took care to make sure he’d lose that notion, from what I know, but it’s not like I went with his crew when we left. And a good thing that was – the few ones who got back here after he let them go weren’t that enthusiastic, I’ll tell you.”

“What did they say exactly?”

“Can’t remember, but there’s someone who’s here and survived that. Go ask him, he’d know.”

Robb asks for the name and then has the man brought upstairs. After a lengthy tale where he learns exactly how things had gone, the reaver shakes his head and shrugs.

“Since then – I mean, since he pretended to kill your damned brothers – not that he actually told anyone, I realized it by looking at the bodies, he just kept on getting worse. I mean, it was obvious he couldn’t hold the fort and that ‘veryone in the village hated him, anyway. Then the lady Asha came and told him he should have gone back with her and it was hopeless, but he refused – damn fool knew it was a lost battle but still wouldn’t budge. Anyway, he told us that if we wanted to go before the castle was assaulted, we were free to. I left – no point in wasting my life for a fucking castle from where you can’t even see the sea.”

“How – how many stayed?”

“Twenty? Not more than that.”

It should have made Robb feel happy or vindicated, he thinks bitterly. But as it is, he thinks he can see a bit of the bigger picture and it’s only making him feel the kind of sadness so deep that seems to go straight to his bones.

He remembers Theon telling him that he’d come back with a fleet, his eyes shining with mirth at the idea of commanding at least some of it, and he feels sick all over again.

“All right. And will you explain me why, if Asha Greyjoy told you to get him back, I found him sleeping with the fucking dogs? Do you think that she’d have been happy about that, too?”

The man shrugs. “He _insisted_. And we’re not bloody nursemaids.”

Robb wants to punch him in the face. He doesn’t out of putting some serious effort in it.

\--

He doesn’t go back to his own chambers until mid-afternoon, though the sun is already almost disappeared on the horizon line. There are two different guards outside the door, but he figures that they know his orders.

“Did anything of import happened during the day?”

“Not since we were here,” one of them answers. “And the others before us, they didn’t say.”

“Did – did he ask for food or water?”

“None of that.”

“Very well. Have – have dinner for two brought here. With water. And tell the cook to make half of it soup.”

He walks inside the room and he finds Theon sitting on the ground, more or less in the same place he had been when he left. Grey Wind is crouched near the bed, not moving.

“I meant it when I said that you could use the bed,” Robb sighs as he moves closer.

“I don’t need it. My lord.”

Robb wishes he’d just stop, but he knows a lost cause when he sees it and so he just sighs and sits next to him, stopping his hands from reaching out – he’s not going to touch if it’s not strictly necessary.

“Maybe you don’t need it, but you can use it anyway.”

Theon doesn’t say anything, looks at his hands circling his knees, and then takes in a deep breath.

“May – may I ask a question?” He resolutely doesn’t look at Robb while speaking.

“Of course.”

“You – you said – that I should know your name, yesterday.”

“You used to,” Robb agrees.

“I’m not – I don’t think I – does it rhyme with sob?”

For a moment Robb’s breath leaves him – he feels as if someone just punched him in the stomach hard enough that they’d feel the wall through it.

“It – it does,” Robb says then, forcing himself to.

“Oh. I think it was the last one I forgot then,” Theon says, so matter of fact that if only it wasn’t for what he’s just muttered, Robb would feel legitimately scared of that tone.

“The – the last one?”

“He – he wanted me to forget some things. No, a lot of them, I guess. I wouldn’t know,” Theon replies quietly. “I can’t remember what now. But – there was a name that I didn’t want to forget, and I’m sure that was the right rhyme. I guess – I guess it was important, but I wouldn’t know now. I’m sorry, I –”

“No. No, don’t be, that – that was… very good, actually.”

“Was – was it?” Gods be good, he sounds almost hopeful now. Robb thinks that he’s about to break down crying. “But it wasn’t all you asked for.”

“It still was part of it,” Robb replies, swallowing and inching just slightly closer. “I never said you had to do it all at once.”

Theon’s shoulders lose maybe a bit of tension at that.

“Humor me a moment,” Robb says, already know he’ll regret it. “What were you expecting me to do? You can say it. I’m not going to do anything either way.”

“He – he – if he asked a question and I didn’t have the right answer he’d… see what punishment was appropriate,” Theon whispers, almost rushing it, his eyes shutting closed, as if he’s bracing himself for a blow.

Robb doesn’t realize that he’s reached out before he’s done it, his fingertips brushing against Theon’s cheek. He turns his hand so that it’s loosely cupping Theon’s cheek, mindful not to be too harsh, and he moves it so that Theon’s face turns in his direction.

“The only thing you should be getting now is something to eat,” Robb finally says. “Come on, take a seat. They’ll bring dinner soon enough. And that said, that answer you gave me wasn’t wrong, was it?”

He moves his hand away a moment later, and it’s a few minutes before Theon stands up and actually takes a seat. Robb doesn’t miss that there’s cold sweat breaking all over his forehead.

Later, while they eat, he can’t help thinking about what Theon had actually said.

_There was a name I didn’t want to forget. It was important._

Robb can bet gold that he’s the only person Theon knows whose name rhymes with fucking _sob_ , and isn’t that the worst word in these circumstances.

But if only it was just that.

_It was the last one I forgot._

_Robb’s_. Not his own. Robb shudders, and thinks, _if he really hated me that much, why would my name be the thing he’d force himself to forget last?_

There’s not much room for imagination. The only possible answer is that Theon never hated him that much.

Then why?

The man he talked to before, he had said that the whole point of the Winterfell stint, as far as they were concerned, was _impressing Balon Greyjoy_ , and that obviously hadn’t gone well. At this point, Robb can safely assume that Theon’s alliance proposal didn’t meet the approval Theon had been sure of, and he wishes he could just ask him. But he knows better than that, for now.

\--

“You really don’t have to sleep on the ground,” Robb tries to tell him later.

Theon shakes his head resolutely and Robb is about to give up, but then – then he thinks that maybe there is a way to convince him. Then he realizes what he has just thought about and feels mildly sick all over again, because he’s not sure that he wants to understand how this mindset works, but he can’t let this go on much longer if he wants to put a stop to it at some point.

“I think you earned it, though.”

“I – I did what?”

Robb takes a deep breath. “Well, I asked you to do a few things, seems to me like you did all of them right until now. If I’m not going to – to punish you, I might as well reward you, or doesn’t it make sense?”

“It – it does,” Theon agrees, but there’s something quite wrong about it.

Then he stands up and moves closer to him, and then Robb gets it when he falls on his knees in front of him and his hands reach out for his laces.

Robb instinctively throws his own hands downwards, his fingers closing around Theon’s wrists.

“What – what are you doing?” he asks, sounding beyond mildly horrified by now. He thinks he knows what Theon is doing exactly.

“You – you said – how would you reward me otherwise?” Theon’s eyes are wide now, as if he honestly doesn’t see what’s wrong with it, and – oh damn. Damn. _Damn_.

He takes a deep breath.

“Take the bed. Just that.”

“I know it doesn’t look like it, but I can –”

“That’s not it. Please. Just that. It should be something for you, not for me.”

He stands up almost abruptly and Theon looks at him as if he can’t even believe that he’s real before taking off his cloak and doing what he asked.

He curls on himself on the edge of the bed, taking as little space as he can, and Robb – Robb needs to be out of this room.

He closes the door, tells the guards not to make too much noise and then he runs out of the hallway and down the stairs until he’s finally outside. He makes it as far as the stables before falling on his knees and vomiting the entirety of his dinner.

He’s taking in deep breaths and trying to keep himself upright when Grey Wind trots next to him. He’s looking at Robb almost expectantly, and Robb doesn’t know if he should say what he’s thinking or not. He’s half-sure that his direwolf knows that already, and he might as well embrace the part of him that is really, really regretting letting Ramsay Snow free.

“Find them,” he whispers. “Don’t do anything that would make them recognize you. But make sure he doesn’t get back to the Dreadfort.”

Grey Wind stares at him for another long moment and then he runs away into the night.

Robb thinks about Theon’s surprised face when Robb stopped him before and he decides that he’ll feel guilty later. A lot later.

\--

As he walks upstairs, he thinks that he should just write some ravens tonight instead of sleeping – who knows what conclusions Theon might jump at if he shares the bed.

The prospect goes out of the window not long after he’s back in his room, because that’s when Theon starts thrashing in his sleep again enough that he falls down from the bed. Of course he would, since he was sleeping right on the edge. Robb curses under his breath before going straight there and kneeling next to him, shaking him awake before he can even hear what he’s saying, and then Theon’s eyes open a moment later. The good thing is that he’s obviously fully awake. The bad thing is that he looks completely terrified.

“I’m sorry, I swear I didn’t mean it, don’t –”

“Nothing happened. Come on, get back there.”

“No. No, please, I’d rather have the ground, _don’t_ –”

“And nothing is going to happen other than you getting some rest.”

Theon looks everything but convinced as he climbs back up on it, and he goes rigid as a piece of stone when Robb climbs in next to him and puts an arm around his waist, forcing him to lay down in the middle of the bed rather than on the edge.

“Go to sleep,” Robb says. “If you think that your clothes won’t be there in the morning, you’re wrong.”

Theon doesn’t answer and stays still until he passes out from most probably exhaustion and Robb resists the urge to go outside and throw up all over again.

\--

When Theon wakes up the following morning, Robb has been up for a while already. Which is how he sees exactly how much Theon looks completely out of his depth when he realizes that his clothes are in fact all in their place.

And a moment later his hands go to his shirt’s laces.

“Don’t,” Robb stops him as soon as he sees it. “Please don’t.”

“But – then – I can’t make it up if I don’t –”

“You don’t have anything to make up to me.” _Or better, you do, but not like this. And not until you remember it._

“I do,” Theon insists.

“Having a nightmare is nothing to make up for.”

“It is,” Theon almost sobs, and Robb doesn’t know if it’s a good idea or not, but he moves closer, his fingertips going to Theon’s neck – he tries not to shudder as he feels newly growing skin along his collarbone.

“No it’s not,” Robb says. “Or at least not to me.”

“Why?”

“… why what?”

“How are you – how can you be like _this_ to me? I don’t deserve any of that, I’m not –”

“I think it’s something else that you don’t deserve,” Robb sighs. “And there’s a reason. But I don’t know if telling you makes much sense if you don’t recall who I am.”

“You look familiar,” Theon whispers, his entire body trembling all over. “I mean, I don’t know, but you do, and I know that your name was something important, but I _can’t_ , he’ll make me beg to take another finger if I do –”

“ _He_ ’s not going to make you do anything, believe me.”

“He’s – he’s not coming back?”

“I really don’t think so. But – damn it, Theon, I just –”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Theon says, and by now he’s sobbing openly, his eyes shut, tears falling down from his scrunched eyelids. “Please don’t call me like that, you shouldn’t, that’s the turncloak, not me, and he died at Winterfell – he’s dead now.”

 _Seven hells_ , Robb thinks, _and what am I supposed to say now?_ He has a feeling that if he says the wrong thing, he’s going to ruin things for good, but maybe if he pushes the right way he could actually get somewhere.

“He – he died at Winterfell?”

“Maybe later,” Theon concedes, “but he’s gone now, he has to stay gone, _it rhymes with weak_ , and it’s not – even if he wasn’t, what good would he be?”

His eyes snap open then, but Robb can’t help feeling at least uneasy as he sees the way Theon is looking down at his own hands – his stare is completely vacant, and it seems as if he’s talking without even realizing that he’s doing it. He swallows and inches a fraction closer.

“What do you mean?”

“Who’d have wanted him anyway? He got everything wrong, and no one was going to miss him after that, and he didn’t want to die – he thought he’d die friendless and abandoned and he did and anyone from _before_ would hate him, so why shouldn’t he be? He’s dead and he should stay dead.”

Robb doesn’t want to think that this might be what finally makes the picture complete, but there’s no reason to think that this isn’t the whole, honest truth of it. For a moment he wishes he had understood it a long time before, because no one thinks _this_ of themselves if they hadn’t been harboring those feelings for a long while, but then he decides that he’ll worry about it later. Right now, he just wants to say the right thing, because he doesn’t even want to contemplate the prospect of getting it wrong and most probably never get a chance again.

“What if he got that wrong, too?” He asks it quietly, forcing himself not to touch and keeping his hands at his sides.

“… what?”

“Maybe not _anyone from before_ hates him,” Robb answers, holding Theon’s stare even if it physically hurts by now.

“Why would you even care about him? Why?”

“Because – because he was like a brother to me. And he was my friend. And I think that maybe he deserves a chance of explaining himself.”

Theon closes his eyes again, his shoulders so tense that he seems this close to snap, and he’s murmuring something under his breath – actually, not _something_. A list of words that rhymes with fucking _reek_ , and – a part of him is saying to just let this go, he’s too far gone and it doesn’t even matter by now, but another is set on at least pushing a bit more.

Then he realizes that maybe he does have one more pawn on his side. He recalls the last time Theon looked at him in disappointment, that time he saved Bran from the wildlings, with the eyes of someone who had expected some praise and was thoroughly not met on those expectations.

“Besides,” Robb says, “I still have to thank him for saving my brother’s life once.”

He holds his breath after he says it, and then – then Theon lets out a shaky breath and brings one hand to his temple, more tears falling from his closed eyelids, but then he opens them again and turns slowly to his left, blinks twice as he shakes his head in disbelief.

But he’s not looking at him as if he has no clue of who he’s talking to.

Theon opens his mouth, then closes it, then opens it again. Robb stays perfectly still, not daring to even ask what’s going on.

“Robb?” Theon asks a moment later, his voice cracking on the word.

For a moment Robb is tempted to cry from relief, but he can’t lose control on the situation for now, not when Theon is looking at him with wide, incredulous eyes, as if he doesn’t know whether he should be worried or terrified.

“Yes,” he replies a moment later, reaching out with his other hand, putting it on Theon’s shoulder but being careful of not doing it too quickly or strongly.

“This – this is not the Dreadfort,” Theon says then, tentatively.

“No.”

“And you’re not – he said you were going to die soon, that they had staged it with – with Lord Frey, and that he’d give me your head, but –”

“No. No, that never came to pass. Don’t. This is Deepwood Motte. Some – some of your sister’s men came to get you, but I guess you don’t remember that part, do you?”

Theon shakes his head once. “It’s – it’s all a blur,” he says a short while later. “But – oh gods, if you’re here –”

“I’m not going to kill you.” Better have that in the open. Not that he hadn’t known since the first day. “And I know everything. Well, almost everything.”

“Like – like what?”

“I know that you didn’t kill my brothers. And I know that you didn’t torch Winterfell. I also know that when you went home it didn’t go as well as you presumed, or at least I got that far. And I think I have a pretty good idea of what happened to you after.”

Theon shudders visibly, not even attempting to counterargument anything that Robb has said.

“There – there’s just one thing I want to ask you. And – just, I think I know the answer already so – just tell me the truth, all right? Don’t feel like you have to tell me what you think I want to hear.”

“What do you want to know?” Theon asks, looking down at his maimed hands as if _he_ wants to vomit, too.

“Why did you do it? I think I can imagine why you didn’t come back, but why did you try to take Winterfell?”

Theon breathes in shallowly and closes his eyes. “When I went back the first thing – the first thing my father did was – was questioning my alliances. According to him – according to him I was just some pawn of yours. Or of your father’s. And – it seems all so stupid now, but it looked like he wanted to let my sister inherit rather than me and – he burned your letter the moment he read it.” He breathes in again and starts turning a piece of his cloak between his fingers. “Either I came back to you with nothing or I stayed and tried to get his trust back. I – that was the first time I got it wrong. I stayed and he gave me some meager job reaving villages. I figured I’d – I’d show him that I was being serious about it.”

His shoulders shake visibly again and Robb is sure that he’s not saying something, but it doesn’t matter – he’s getting the gist of it.

“I figured – if I went for Winterfell there would be no doubt about my alliances. And – I don’t know, maybe I thought that I was also taking revenge on your father while doing it? I spent ten years thinking that he might kill me at any moment, and I wasn’t – I was getting desperate. And I made a mess of that, too. At the end I was thinking to just leave and take the black, but then – he got there.”

No questions about who the _he_ is. “I know that. He was the one killing Ser Rodrik and everyone else with him before they put the castle to fire, didn’t he?”

Theon gives him a short nod, looking as if he doesn’t want anything more than curl on himself completely and disappear into his own skin.

“When I left – I know it’s not an excuse, but – I swear that when I left I didn’t – I meant it. I did want it. There’s just – when I was at the Dreadfort first, at the beginning, I swore myself that if I ever saw you again I would have at least told you. That I hadn’t tricked you into letting me leave just to stab you in the back later. I – I guess it’s not worth much now.”

“Let me be the judge of that.” Robb breathes in again. “Listen, there’s something – when I was at the Dreadfort, there was this terrified maid who told me that she was afraid that Snow would do something to her if you ever tried to escape again. I supposed it was you. Care to explain that to me?”

Theon shudders so violently that the bed almost shakes. “I tried to escape. A couple of times,” he says after what seems like a long while. “One – do you remember Kyra?”

Robb’s blood goes cold. “That girl from the inn that you used to –”

“She was at Winterfell with me. We – we tried to run away together, she had managed to find the keys, but it was all a set-up. He – he set his dogs on us. That’s what he did every time. And – it ended with – I lost another finger and she – do I have to say it?”

“No. No, you don’t,” Robb agrees immediately. He can imagine it well enough. And he can also imagine why one of the dogs was named like that.

“Just – I know that it’s worthless now, but – if I could do it all over again I wouldn’t – I wouldn’t –”

“I think I know that,” Robb says softly, and even if he had still been angry he’s half-sure that he couldn’t stay like that now. “All right. I swear this is the last question I ask you. What do you remember of the last few days?”

Theon merely lets out a half-strangled laugh that does not reassure Robb at all.

“I’m not even sure I could put the last two months straight,” he sobs a moment later. “The last thing I remember clearly is – is _him_ telling me that you’d be dead in a matter of days, and then I was here. The rest is all – I think I just went away by that point. For that matter I don’t even know how I’m even here. Really, you should just kill me and be done with it. You’d be in the right, wouldn’t you?”

 _Who wouldn’t go away or whatever Theon means with that_ , Robb thinks bitterly.

“I don’t think – well, let’s get it in the open. I gather you don’t recall the part where I asked you if you remembered me,” he says, trying to keep the tone light and failing completely.

“You – you did?”

“Yes. It didn’t go too well. Then I asked you to try to do that. The best you gave me was that my name rhymed with sob. And then you informed me that it was – something along the lines of the last thing you supposedly forgot. Now let me ask you, how in the seven hells are you expecting me to take your head after that?”

Theon reaches up with the back of his wrist and wipes at his eyes – he’s still not looking at him.

“It shouldn’t matter. I – I only realized it down there. That I ruined the only good thing that ever happened to me. I wasn’t – I didn’t want to lose what little I had of it too, but I guess I did?”

“Can I touch you?”

Theon’s head jerks upwards, and he looks at him again – finally. His eyes are so bloodshot it almost hurts to look at them, but he also looks as if that question is the most confusing he’s ever heard in his entire life.

“What – why would you ask?”

“Because last night you were trying to – never mind. I’ve been spending days feeling guilty about even putting a hand on your arm because it looked like it was the last thing you wanted but you wouldn’t tell me straight, and I’m not – I’m not doing anything you don’t want.”

Also because he’s secretly afraid that if he did he’d undo everything and they’d go back to words that rhyme with _reek_.

“Yes,” Theon says a moment later, sounding as if he can’t even believe he’s in the position to say it. He also sounds as if he doesn’t know what to expect.

Robb throws caution to the wind and puts his arms around Theon’s shoulders, trying not to do it too quickly or too abruptly, and he expects it fully when Theon doesn’t reciprocate it.

“What – what are you doing?” he asks a moment later, sounding completely out of his depth.

“What does it look like?” Robb thinks he’s about to start laughing hysterically by this point. “I don’t even care. I don’t think I could hate you if I tried by now.”

Theon’s hands go cautiously to his sides at that, his fingers still trembling.

“I’m dreaming this, am I?”

He asks it so quietly, muffled against Robb’s shoulder, but Robb hears it even too well.

“No,” he answers, feeling his own eyes burning with salt. “No, you’re not.”

\--

He eventually has to leave – he can’t linger in his room forever, but at least when he does Theon is sleeping again and on the bed, so he figures he can’t complain about that.

He’s supervising the rations they’ll have to bring with when Smalljon Umber brings him two ravens – and one of them has the Bolton sigil. The other – the other is from _Rodrik Harlaw_?

Robb wonders what in the seven hells is going on in the Iron Islands if he’s getting ravens from there, but he looks at the one with the Bolton sigil first.

It’s from one of Snow’s men. It said that there was some kind of disruption as they rode during the night – a wild dog or maybe a wolf had upset Snow’s horse and he broke his neck as he fell down from it, and does His Lordship have orders concerning the Dreadfort, as there’s no one that might inherit it?

Robb thinks he knows what might have happened and he doesn’t feel much guilt at all.

He decides that he’ll discuss the matter with his council later, and then he reads the second message.

Well. It’s not from Rodrik Harlaw after all, that was just the sigil. It’s from Asha Greyjoy.

It says that there’s been a kingsmoot and that she had been about to win it, except that apparently her uncle Euron did. But that’s not the interesting part of that. The first interesting part is that she was planning to go back to Deepwood Motte, except that she cannot do that now. The other interesting part is that apparently the kingsmoot can be invalidated if someone who had the right to be there wasn’t present. The most interesting overall is that she’s asking him for help. According to her, she’d come back here (escaping her marriage as well, Robb figures), get her brother, re-do the kingsmoot and ally with him after if they win it.

The thing, Robb thinks bitterly, is that he doesn’t think Theon might agree with that plan as it is right now.

But maybe – after all, she had told her men to go get him, which means that she knew where he was and that she cared, and he’s pretty sure that she’d have been at least as angry as he had been if she had come back to what Robb had found.

And the gods know that Theon could use having around someone who doesn’t hate him on principle.

He writes back telling her that he’d be more than willing to offer her asylum in the North as long as she waits some time before going through with that plan. He doesn’t add too many details about why, but enough that she might get an idea of how bad it is with her brother. Then he sends it back where it came from.

\--

“He’s dead, you know,” he tells Theon that evening. Theon has his back turned to him, still curled on his side on the bed though at least it’s not at the edge of it.

“Dead?”

“ _Some wolf_ startled his horse on the way back to the Dreadfort,” Robb replies as he sits up on the bed.

Theon turns towards him slowly, his eyes wide, his lips parted – he looks halfway between relieved and disbelieving.

“I – I gather it wasn’t any wolf, was it?”

“You gather right.”

Theon visibly swallows before turning his face into the pillow, his shoulders trembling in what looks like relief.

Robb knows that he shouldn’t, but instead of turning on the other side he moves closer and puts an arm around Theon’s waist instead.

\--

Five days later, Robb gets another raven from Harlaw.

It only reads, _deal_.

He tells everyone that they’ll postpone leaving until Asha Greyjoy gets here, and at least no one considers his plan not sound – if they don’t have to deal with a third rebellion from the iron islands now that they finally could all go back home, all gained.

Grey Wind comes back that same day – no one asks where he had gone and Robb doesn’t say.

\--

He debates on whether he should tell Theon about it now or if he should wait, but then he decides that he deserves the truth after everything, and so he tells him that night.

“It doesn’t have to happen right now,” he takes care to specify. “We’ll just go back to Winterfell after she gets here and take some time. And – if it all goes right, I guess it doesn’t change much from how things should have gone in the first place, does it?”

Robb knows that it’s not exactly true, but – well. It’d still be an alliance and it’d still be on equal footing. And he wouldn’t have to keep Theon for a hostage all over again, for one. Not to mention that he’d have a proper excuse not to kill him to feed his bannermen.

“That would be the next best thing,” Theon agrees, staring straight at his hands – he’s sitting on the bed, back against the headboard, knees bent and fingers touching them. He’s resolutely not looking at Robb.

“You know, I never approved of that.”

At that, he does look at Robb again.

“You – you didn’t?”

“No. I found out when Roose Bolton brought me a piece of skin before I was supposed to leave for that wedding, but it was long after you lost Winterfell. For the nothing it’s worth, I had told him to make it stop, but I don’t think that raven ever left Riverrun.”

“It’s – it’s not worth nothing,” Theon replies quietly, bringing his knees closer. He glances at Robb, as if he’s about to ask something, but then he seems to think better of it and doesn’t.

Robb doesn’t press it and if his nails are almost breaking skin as he curls his fingers into fists, no one save himself is noticing.

\--

He wakes up to the sound of someone throwing up next to the fireplace. The bed is empty on the other side.

He spares a moment to think that he did a good thing when yesterday he decided to keep a pitch of fresh water in the room – he pours some of that into a cup and walks closer to Theon, who’s still kneeling in front of the fireplace with his hands clenched around his stomach.

“I’m sorry,” he says in a small voice that Robb recognizes even too well, and – _no_ , he thinks. _Gods, don’t tell me he forgot all over again_.

“What for? Here, have a drink. Just spit the first one.” He tries to keep his voice steady and he doesn’t miss that Theon is resolutely not looking at him as he takes the cup. He spits half of it in the fireplace and drinks the rest, and when it’s empty it’s a miracle that he manages to put it on the ground without letting it fall, considering how much his hands are shaking.

“I didn’t mean to wake you up,” he says a moment later.

“It’s fine.” The question is there on the tip of Robb’s tongue, but he’s not sure he has the guts to ask it.

When Theon does turn to look at him a moment later, there’s something weird about it all over again – he looks as if he’s staring at him but not, except that this time his stare has something… almost soft in it? Dreamy, maybe? Better than the way Theon used to look at him a week ago, but it’s still kind of unsettling.

“Oh,” he whispers then, “you – you knew my name, didn’t you?”

Robb wonders if that’s the way sleepwalkers might speak, and when he sees Theon’s left hand hovering in the air he slowly reaches out and takes it, his fingers curling around the three ones left.

“I did. I do,” he answers, still trying to keep his voice as calm as he can.

“This – this is strange – I feel like it should rhyme but at the same time it doesn’t – you know how it is –does it? What’s the right one?”

Robb swallows bile and tries to think quickly, but in between how worried sick he feels and his lack of patience for this game, he can’t even begin to think of any fucking word that rhymes with _Theon_. Which is entirely fine with him.

“It’s the one that doesn’t,” he finally replies as Theon still stares at him with eyes that manage to be vacant and not at the same time.

“But how am I supposed to remember it then?”

Robb isn’t anywhere near ready to do this. He prays that he’s not going to make things worse now, but as it is, he has no clue of what he should do and so he hopes that his gut is telling him right.

“You don’t remember it,” he says softly as he puts his free hand on the small of Theon’s back, making sure that there’s no risk it might feel constraining. “You know it.”

“So – so I can have it back now?”

“You always had it in the first place.”

Robb holds his breath as Theon’s head falls on his shoulder, and he doesn’t move for a short while, not even knowing what he should be doing except waiting.

When Theon leans back slightly, Robb can’t keep in his breath of relief – he’s looking at him _right_. Or well, as if he knows who he’s talking to at least.

“Robb?” He sounds almost surprised.

“Yes?”

“What – what are we doing here?”

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Robb asks, already suspecting the answer.

“… going to sleep. I think. I – I went away again, didn’t I?”

Robb is not going to lie if only because he can’t stomach the idea of even doing anything that Ramsay Snow might have.

“Yes,” he says through the knot in his throat. “But it’s fine. You came back, right?”

“I didn’t want to leave.” The tone says it all, Robb realizes – it’s not about _this_ , or not entirely at least.

At least, he thinks he knows the answer now.

“Then don’t do it,” he says, one of his hands going to the back of Theon’s head, his fingers buried in his hair. “You can stay.”

“I – I could?”

“Of course you can.” Robb’s mouth is this close to his ear now, his fingers threatening to grip almost painfully tight at Theon’s side, and at that Theon almost melts against him, as if he’d take the chance to climb inside him and never leave.

It takes him some time to stand up and drag the two of them on the bed again, where Theon curls up even closer against his side – by now Robb figures that he shouldn’t be worried about being too crowding. What he’s worried about is something else.

“You should get some rest,” he says, trying as hard as possible to make it sound like a friendly suggestion rather than an order.

“I can’t. What if I forget it all over again?”

Robb swallows and drags one of the furs up higher – it’s not making up for the chill that he’s feeling through his bones, but he needs to be doing something while he thinks about what he could possibly answer to that.

“You won’t, but – that’s fine anyway,” he finally says, not bothering to hide the crack in his voice. “I can remember it for you.”

“Would you?” Theon’s voice is a rasp as he moves away enough to look at Robb in the eyes, his right hand reaching upwards, shaking fingertips touching Robb’s cheek almost reverently.

“Yes,” Robb says, not moving an inch as Theon’s fingers trail downwards – it’s as if he wants to make sure that Robb is real and it’s making him want to scream.

Instead of screaming he forces himself to look encouraging instead, and so he tries to smile a bit hoping that it doesn’t look like a grimace.

And then – he sees it. It lasts barely a moment but Theon almost smiles back as they always used to do – if one did it, the other usually followed – but then he obviously realizes what he’s doing and his mouth becomes tight all over again.

“That’s – that’s – you can. If you want to.”

“It’s – it’s not – I can’t, it’d be ugly – he said I did it too much.”

Robb sincerely hopes that he’s not making a colossal mistake as he reaches out with his own hand and traces Theon’s cracked bottom lip.

“Too bad for him. I don’t remember ever having a problem with it.”

For a moment, he thinks it’s a lost cause.

“Do you want me to?”

“Only if you do,” Robb replies earnestly – he’s not going to tell him what to do.

A moment later, he feels the corner of Theon’s mouth curl upwards under his fingertips, not overtly much, and as his lips part it’s barely enough to see pieces of teeth and gaps in between them, but all things considered it almost looks breathtaking. He grins back, and at least there’s no risk that it might not look genuine.

“That’s nowhere near ugly,” he says a moment later, still tracing the curl of it.

“It’s – not?”

“Not at all.”

Maybe it’s that he meant it entirely, but after that Theon seems to let him win this particular argument, and when he closes his eyes not long later, collapsing in exhaustion, he’s still smiling ever so slightly.

Robb traces the edge of his mouth with his fingertips all over again – he doesn’t stop himself from grinning wide enough that it hurts, and when he feels his eyes burning with a few tears that aren’t of frustration he merely wipes them away once. He leans back down, his hand feeling the sharpness of Theon’s hipbones even through layers of clothes, and Theon stirs a bit at that.

“Robb?” he asks under his breath, almost tentatively, as if just being able to say it makes him feel awed.

“Theon?”

“I just wanted to hear it,” he says before his forehead presses against Robb’s shoulder.

As Robb spends the next few minutes whispering both of their names against Theon’s ear, for once he doesn’t feel a knot in his stomach while he speaks. Maybe there’s still half a chance they can both get it right.

End.


End file.
